


Friendly Fire

by toushindai (WallofIllusion)



Category: Transistor (Video Game)
Genre: F/M, a less than noble moment tbh
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-01-06
Updated: 2018-01-06
Packaged: 2019-03-01 08:37:13
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,323
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13291167
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/WallofIllusion/pseuds/toushindai
Summary: Red's on the hunt for answers, and she finds some in Sybil Reisz's profile. She doesn't like what she finds.





	Friendly Fire

There’s new information available to him as soon as Red plugs the Transistor into the access point: Sybil’s profile, complete at last. He would’ve grimaced as he took it in, if he still had a face to grimace with.

“Hey, Red—” he starts, caution in his voice, but her eyes are hard and immune to his warning. She’s been filling in the profiles deliberately. She wants answers.

And this is an answer, all right.

He wishes he could laugh it off: _guess she wanted me dead. At least someone got what they wanted out of all this_. He wishes he could hold Red as she begins to shake with rage, as the Transistor picks up on the spike (in her heart rate? Her breathing? Where is it getting this data, anyway?) and translates it into numbers that seem far too high but exactly accurate. A long moment passes, long enough for her to reread the profile in its entirety. Then she closes out of that screen and, with a flick of her fingers, shifts Help() from a passive slot to an active one.

He doesn’t understand. “You still want to use it?” he asks, because it doesn’t seem like her. Red doesn’t forgive easily. Either you’re in her good graces or you’d better have a damn good explanation for yourself, and this profile hasn’t exactly improved her opinion of Sybil. The Transistor still reads her as infuriated—vengeful—and he knows it’s true. The cold dispassion on her face only proves it.

She unplugs from the access point and casts an assessing gaze around her, checking for any stray Process. “All clear,” he assures her. “Red, what are you thinking?”

She can’t tell him, of course, and might not have even if she could; but when she lifts the Transistor and twirls it, he begins to have an inkling of what she has in mind. “Red…” he starts warily, hoping he’s wrong.

Red lets Luna materialize into view—all lithe energy and friendly eagerness—and then, as the dog-Process crouches in front of her, waiting for an order, she raises the Transistor again and brings it crashing down in an attack.

“Red, hey!”

He doesn’t make contact because Luna is an allied Process, but the attack still terrifies the poor Fetch. She bounds away with a high-pitched yelp, limbs trembling. Red raises the Transistor again and he tries to get her attention before she’s done aiming.

“Stop, Red, leave Luna out of this!”

She’s not listening to him. She unleashes Breach() in Luna’s direction and Luna yelps again, darting back and forth until she spots an archival stack to hide behind. Red lets the Transistor’s blade hit the floor and drags it as she strides towards the Fetch’s hiding place.

“Red,” he says again, and he hears a forcefulness that borders on anger creep into his voice. “I’m serious. Stop.”

She keeps walking, but the Transistor picks up on some minute waver in her resolve.

“She’s not Sybil, Red. She’s just—she’s a friend. Don’t take this out on her.”

Now her hesitation is distinct enough to be visible. She stops walking for a moment, emotions warring on her face; then she drives the Transistor into the floor and crouches before it, hands tight around the hilt and head tucked into the crook of her arms. Before he can call out to her again, she lets loose a guttural scream of rage and anguish that breaks his heart. She breathes heavily for a moment and then gives another strangled, frustrated cry.

The Transistor sees her rage tick downwards as despair swells in its place. He has to say something. He has to _do something_. “Red…” he starts, but it’s not _enough_. What she needs is to be able to voice her rage, to spell out to his listening ear every feeling writhing in her heart. She needs to _talk_. But she can’t, because they took her voice away from her. And they took him, too, and that was Sybil’s plan all along. He sighs heavily, and all he has to offer Red is an aching, “I know.”

She leans her forehead against the Transistor without opening her eyes. He tries to send a little extra warmth through the blade, for her, but he doesn’t really have that kind of control and he’s lying to himself if he pretends he does. He can’t do anything for her. He can’t even listen to her, because she can’t speak.

_He_ could speak, but nothing he could say here would be right. Red’s the one who’s been betrayed by something like a friend; his own connection with Sybil has never been anything other than awkward. Her crush on Red had been obvious and persistent, but he never _blamed_ her for that. He studiously, politely maintained no opinion on her at all. Apparently that made him “aloof.” Apparently it made him worth killing, made it worth it to Sybil to put Red in harm’s way on the off-chance that he’d step in and take the fall instead. And step in he had, right into her trap. He doesn’t regret the decision; he’d do it a hundred times over if that was what it took to keep Red safe. But if it had just been the Camerata’s trap, he wouldn’t feel like _this_.

Sybil’s trace is inside the Transistor now, packaged up neatly in some place he doesn’t have real access to. It’s her, but it’s not _really_ her anymore: no will, nothing capable of observing the world. There’s nothing left of her to feel glad that Red found her _before_ they knew the whole story. Because if they’d known what Sybil really had planned by the time they caught up to her at the Empty Set—well, Red wouldn’t have needed to pretend that attacking Luna after the fact was a stand-in for revenge, would she?

Because it’s not like he doesn’t understand why she’s angry. Why she’s gripping the Transistor with all her might as though it’s the only thing keeping her from dissolving into tears. He gets it, he just doesn’t want her to have to feel this way. He wishes he could have all of prevented this.

A sound pulls their attention back to reality.

“Just Luna,” he says, because he takes in the information first, and Red’s tense muscles relax. The Fetch is making her way towards them, timidly, tail between her legs but wagging all the same. She hangs her head when she nears Red, and Red reaches out one gentle hand to pet her like she would a real dog.

“Hey, Luna,” he says quietly, and Red sighs. Luna rests her head in Red's lap, at ease again.

He feels a timer ticking down inside the Transistor. “Almost time for her to go,” he warns Red. “Is it all right if I apologize to her before she does?”

Red winces, and nods. She scratches behind Luna’s ears. “Sorry, girl,” he says, although he doesn’t know if Luna can hear his voice, come to think of it. Or if she understands, if she does. She’s just a thing, in the end. Maybe not even alive. Then again, he’s not really alive, either.

The timer hits zero, and Luna goes back to wherever she goes. Red sighs again, and leans back against the Transistor. He pretends, for just a moment, that he still has arms to wrap around her. He thinks she might be pretending the same thing.

“You know,” he says in the silence of the crumbling archives, “she could hear my voice when you fought her. Sybil, I mean.”

Red thinks about what that means, and a grim smile crosses her face. Yeah, that’s about how he feels, too.

“She hasn’t separated us. And she knows it. Her trace has to know that forever.”

The best revenge is living well, isn’t it? At least Red still has that option.

Maybe that’s enough.

**Author's Note:**

> it is absolutely not enough and Boxer is not being very honest with himself about his feelings here but y'know, girlfriend to support, city to save, literally can't actually do anything but talk  
> he'll do the feelings thing later  
> (he tells himself)
> 
> (do Not get me started on the differences in the ways these two handle negative emotions because I will not stop)


End file.
